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Thursday, August 08, 2013

My 90-year-old German grandmother has been leading a free exercise group three times a week for 40 years. She was born in Danzig (now part of Poland) and grew up in Berlin and Vienna. She attended a dance conservatory and has always been very physically active. She also raised 8 children!

I've been thinking about the presentation I gave to a camp for teenage girls and how I encouraged them to think about their bodies in terms of what they can accomplish and experience, not in terms of what they look like. My grandma is a great example of finding joy in what her body can still do.

Here's a teaser from the article:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, a group of women ranging in age from young adult to 95 meet at an LDS church house in Logan to exercise.

The group, led by 90-year-old Brigitta Clyde, completes a 40- to 45-minute program that works the body from head to toe.

“Every joint is involved,” Clyde said.

More than 40 years ago, the Logan [Utah] resident was asked by the Relief Society president in her LDS ward to organize an exercise class. Clyde accepted the assignment, planned a routine and decades later, the class is still going.

“It was funny, you know, when we started out together we were saying, ‘how can we do that when we are 50?’ ... and then we were saying, ‘think we can do it 10 more years when we’re 60?’ Then we said, ‘Seventy? Eighty? Ninety?’ You know, we kept saying that to ourselves as a group — will we be able to? And we are still able to,” Clyde said.